Those fracking Tories

There have been protest meetings across West Sussex against the danger of Hydraulic Fracturing ("Fracking"). The practice has been banned in France and Bulgaria after mass protests.

The water companies are already talking about hosepipe bans across the south-east. The public are being lectured about saving water. So it would take a madman to deliberately pollute thousands of gallons of the stuff.

The fracking process involves taking thousands of gallons of water out of the water supply and mixing it with various things you'd rather not find in your glass.

They include benzene which is pleasantly carcinogenic with a dash of toluene, a central nervous system depressant. The delightful cocktail is rounded off with xylene which is regarded as a neurotoxin.

Sussex Conservative MP Francis Maude (the pensioners' friend!) is very relaxed about fracking although he's selling off one of his many homes in Sussex. He is equally relaxed about appointing his chum Lord Browne, a director of Cuadrilla, the fracking firm involved, as 'lead non-executive' to the Cabinet Office.